Monday, October 22, 2012

On October 19th, Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa publicly released 166 pages of documents, 45 photos, and the 10-page letter he had sent to Barack Obama. The letter included ten questions Issa wanted the president to answer. It also implicated Obama as being personally responsible in his role as chairman of the National Security Council, which Issa identified specifically as the entity that likely made the decisions that put Americans in danger.

The Obama administration quickly attempted to say that by releasing this information, Issa has put a human rights activist in danger. In a press release, Issa's team debunks this feeble attempt by the administration to shift the focus of the debate by using a female activist as a political prop (which is apparently supposed to feed the 'war on women' narrative).

“The Libyan rights activist who was highlighted by the Obama administration in news accounts as having not been, ‘publicly associated with the U.S.’ until the Oversight Committee released documents had actually been brought to the U.S. in December 2011 by the State Department and her trip is highlighted on the Internet. President Obama should be ashamed of yet another example where his administration has been caught trying to mislead the American people about what happened in Libya.”

“Obama Administration officials and their surrogates are clearly reeling from revelations about how the situation in Benghazi was mishandled and are falsely politicizing the issue in a last ditch effort to save President Obama’s reelection effort. To see such prominent officials as Sen. John Kerry, Sen. Dick Durbin, Sen. Carl Levin, Rahm Emanuel, and Obama Senior Advisor David Axelrod paraded out over to weekend to make false charges about the Oversight Committee putting Libyans in danger only shows their desperation to hide the truth. As the Committee had previously indicated, the State Department has had these documents for two weeks but never contacted the committee about making specific redactions. The Libyans noted in these documents worked in positions where their interactions with westerners would not be surprising.”

The Obama administration attempted to portray this woman as someone who isn't associated with the U.S. except for the cable that mentions her, which it says puts her in danger. Issa's staff is pointing to a video that features this activist as well as a public State Department event in late 2011 for the International Visitor Program of the World Affairs Council, at which she was hosted.

Here is the video of her on the internet, speaking out against the Libyan transitional government and she is wearing a badge that clearly says, "United States Department of State".